» Kang Ki-kap, a lawmaker from the Democratic Labor Party, passes Chung Woon-chun, the Minister of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, at the National Assembly on May 8.

Controversy is growing as police step up their investigation into Rep. Kang Ki-gap of the progressive opposition Democratic Labor Party over alleged election law violations.

On May 8, the Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency said it began its investigation into Kang after a person close to Rep. Lee Bang-ho of the ruling Grand National Party asked police to do so. The person accused the DLP lawmaker of spreading false rumors about Lee, a violation of an election law governing the candidates during the April parliamentary election.

In the April 9 election, Kang defeated Lee by a slim margin in the electoral district of Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province. The victory will make Kang a two-term lawmaker when the new parliament is seated on May 30.

The person close to Lee suspects Kang and his associates of allegedly having sent facsimile messages defaming Lee to 27 sites on March 20, including an office of the city of Sacheon. Kang and his associates were also suspected of having allegedly released booklets containing similar content to DLP members during the campaign period.

Police said the facsimile messages were sent by a person with the user name “nongmin” (“the peasant”), which is the same as that used by Kang on a Web-based facsimile site called Internet Magic Fax. Police said they have been in discussions with prosecutors to get a warrant to raid Kang’s offices in Seoul and Sacheon in order to secure the site’s log-on records and Internet protocol addresses.

Bae Kang, the superintendent of the Sacheon police station, said, “So far, we haven’t applied for the warrant because prosecutors have not yet approved the request.”

In response, the DLP criticized the police for starting the probe, describing it as an “attempt to save Lee Bang-ho as well as an ill-prepared and nasty form of political revenge against Kang, who has been an outspoken opponent of the government’s decision to fully reopen its market to U.S. beef.”

DLP spokesman Park Seung-hup said, “Rep. Kang has been a target of police investigation, though the police turned a blind eye to the wide circulation of mobile-phone text messages against Kang during the election campaign.”

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